When the news was received, I was dining at the Mess of the 24th Regiment, and had asked to sit next to a man whose name was already well known in the Colony, Captain Brabant, a Member of the Legislative Council. He had served as Adjutant of the Cape Mounted Rifles, and when the Corps was disbanded took to farming near King William’s Town, and had been successful. He was a man of middle age, somewhat impetuous, with great personal courage, an iron constitution, and for his age very active habits; these qualities, combined with some Military knowledge, marked him out as a Colonial leader of men. I found him socially as a soldier an agreeable comrade.
The General told me next day he intended me to proceed to Keiskamma Hoek, 25 miles to the north of King William’s Town, where I was to endeavour to command harmoniously some Colonial farmers. There had been considerable friction between Colonists and Imperial officers in the Transkei Campaign. That afternoon Captain Brabant had a warning letter written by a friend in Keiskamma Hoek, stating that Mr. Lonsdale, the Magistrate, had been repulsed by Sandilli’s men, and that an attack on the village was expected at daylight. Brabant urged me to start at once, and I agreed to go after dinner, which would in any case bring us in before daylight; but the General would not sanction it, as I was to take out two companies of the 24th Regiment next day, leaving one about half-way, at Bailie’s Grave.[141]
The Buffalo Range and its adjoining hills, over and above which our operations were carried out for the next three months, is about 12 miles north of King William’s Town, which Settlement lies in a hollow of a plateau bounded on either side by parallel ranges of mountains. The track from King William’s Town to Keiskamma Hoek runs generally for 12 miles in a north-westerly direction, passing over an undulating country nearly bare of trees, when the traveller sees in front of and above him a wall-like mountain, covered for miles with lofty trees and dense underwood. The southern side is precipitous, and, under the term “Perie Bush,” extends for 6 miles from the Buffalo River on the east to the King William’s Town-Bailie’s Grave-Keiskamma Hoek road, on the west. Bailie’s Grave post is a small square earthwork, 12 inches high, a relic of the war of 1851, on a neck, which runs generally from east to west, and connects this wall-like side of the Buffalo Range with a mountain 2 miles south-west of Bailie’s Grave, called the Intaba Indoda, to the west of which there is also a precipitous fall to the southward, bounded by the Debe Flats. The track north of Bailie’s Grave post, bending northwards, passes under, in succession, Goza Heights and the Gwili-Gwili Mountains, which tower 2000 feet above Keiskamma Hoek, the original “great place” of Sandilli’s father, well known in the war of 1851–52. The scenery in the valley is beautiful beyond description. The Basin, in which Germans had formed the most fertile farms I saw in the Colony, is surrounded by fantastic hills. It possessed seven churches,—each, it is true, only the size of an Aldershot hut,—six being Lutheran, and one Church of England.[142]
The main feature in the Range is the so-called Buffalo Poort, at the head of which the river rises in a ravine (locally called a kloof), which extends 5 miles in a southerly direction, being at its mouth 2½ miles wide from east to west. At its head, where the spring rises, the slopes are comparatively gentle, the gorge being about 50 feet deep; but it falls away rapidly, and at the mouth of the valley a man standing on the rocks above may throw a stone which, according to where it alights, will travel 600 or 800 feet below him. All this valley is clothed with magnificent forest trees, and most of it with thick undergrowth, and is so rugged that within one pace there is often a drop of 20 or 30 feet; and in one of our skirmishes two Gaikas being pressed by us fell nearly 100 feet, and were killed.
To the eastward of the Poort, or valley, there is another hollow, the stream of which joins the Buffalo River under a bold granite precipice, called Sandilli’s Krantz, and again farther east a valley called the Cwengwe forms the boundary of the tangled mass of forest-clad rocks in which the Gaikas hid for three months. Sandilli’s Krantz covers 30 acres of rocks, formed by a portion of the cliff having broken away, and unless one has lived in the cave it is nearly impossible to find an individual in it, and throughout the war of 1851–52 it was undiscovered by Europeans.
The whole Buffalo Range extends 12 miles from north to south, and 8 miles from east to west, the highest points being on the northern and eastern sides. These are in themselves considerably above the edge of the valley called the Buffalo Poort, and from the western side of the Poort the ground slopes gradually, covered with bush, but interspersed with open glades. In these glades the Gaikas fed their cattle and basked, for the warm sun is as necessary to the red Kafir as is his food.
When my party, one company of the 24th, Lieutenant Rawlings, and 10 mounted men of the 90th Light Infantry, reached Keiskamma Hoek, we found the Magistrate, Mr. Rupert Lonsdale, preparing for another reconnaissance. He was reticent as to the previous day’s proceedings, in which he had lost two men, but I learned later that he had led in the advance, and had covered the retreat. He had reconnoitred up on the mountain, and was passing under one of its highest points, Mount Kempt, with 60 White residents of Keiskamma Hoek, and about the same number of Fingoes, when they were fired on by Kafirs in ambush, and had to retire.
For the next three months Lonsdale dined with me at least twice every week, and had many other meals with me, and thus I got to know him very well. He had served in the 74th Regiment, until insufficient means forced him out of the Army, and he chanced to go to the Cape to nurse a sick brother. He told me many amusing stories of his short Army life; one instance, which occurred at Colchester Camp, I repeat.
Lonsdale was fond of playing cards, and one summer morning, when his party broke up about 3 a.m., he saw, to his astonishment, an officer of his acquaintance walking up and down between the huts, carrying a lighted candle, and humming Handel’s “Dead March.” Startled, Lonsdale said, “What are you doing here in your nightshirt?” “Don’t you know,” the man replied, “I am dead, and they’re burying me? Just listen to the band;” and he again started his mournful dirge. Lonsdale,[143] seeing his state, humoured him for a few minutes, and taking his arm, they walked up and down to this dismal music. Finally, when passing the door of the man’s hut, which stood open, my friend said, “Here we are at the cemetery,” and leading him into the hut, put him into bed. Then, blowing out the candle, he said, “There you are, ‘dust to dust, ashes to ashes,’” and covering him over with the bed-clothes, added, “We will fire the three volleys in the morning.” Next day the man was ill, and did not remain long in the Service.
Lonsdale was about thirty years of age, of slight but strong build, and he strode along at the head of his Fingoes, setting a pace which even they, who when paid will run 6 or 7 miles for hours in succession, found severe. The Fingoes themselves were nearly always led by certain men of character, not necessarily Heads of Locations who controlled them in camp, but other men, who became self-constituted leaders in action. These were Gaikas married into Fingoe families, and though this fact was not in itself sufficient to render such men loyal, yet if, as in some cases, their fathers were not “Out” in the 1851–52 war, they had come to consider themselves Government men. Four were to my knowledge shot leading their Fingoe fellow-villagers against the Gaikas.